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1 A Qualitative Insight into Islamic Advertising Ethics Mohammad Noorizzuddin Nooh Abstract Advertising plays a major role in today’s businesses. Its role in disseminating information has transcended over the geographical and cultural boundaries. It is considered to be one of the essential marketing tools which have been proven to be effective in capturing new customers and creating brand image. The advancement in technologies has created new media thus it is almost impossible to manage the effects of advertisements particularly to the younger generations. Advertising in the new millennium has raised substantial concerns among religious scholars particularly in the issues of unethical advertising. The author has conducted several qualitative interviews among Malaysian Islamic religious scholars in order to understand their concern on these issues and also to gauge qualitatively on their views on Islamic advertising ethics. The paper discusses the religious scholars’ views on the Malaysian advertising industry in general, its effect on children, teenager, and adults, roles of the government, society and advertising practitioners in improving the current situations, the foundations of Islamic ethics, roles of advertising in Islam, conflicts between current advertising practices and Islamic teachings, and also the ideal roles of advertising in the society. Keywords: Ethics, Advertising Ethics, Islam, Islamic Advertising Ethics, 1. Introduction Advertising is one of the most integral parts of a business entity. Organizations all around the world spend billions of dollars every year to promote their products and advertising is one of the tools to promote their product globally. As businesses transcend across border, the role and magnitude of advertising expenditure have expanded thus require a close examination in terms of its roles and functions. These ethical issues include women exploitation, subliminal perception, advertising to children, deceptive advertising, and other issues which can lead to moral deterioration of the society1. The fact that potentially unethical advertisements are reaching the marketplace suggested that current methods of evaluating advertisements may be insufficient for some of today’s controversial or innovative campaigns2. Most of the criticism of advertising comes from those who focus on advertising’s social role while most of the defenses 2 come from those who emphasize on economic functions3. Researches in business ethics covers all the functions of business thus it also covers the area of advertising and promotion. Due to the fact that advertising stirs ethical controversies, numerous studies from different perspectives have been done to understand this phenomenon4. Ethics is one of the branches of philosophy5. According to Spence and Heekeren6, ethics can be defined as “a set of prescriptive rules, principles, values, and virtues of character that inform and guide interpersonal and intrapersonal conduct”. Schlegelmilch further argues that ethics is hard to define due to the fact that it cannot be directly measured and it originates from many influences such as internal and external environmental influences7. Dr H. Hamzah Ya’qub in his book, Etika Islam: Pembinaan Akhlaqulkarimah, perceives ethics as a body of knowledge that examines good and bad/right and wrong by observing human behaviors8. Ethics in Islam differs from the philosophical ethics because it is rooted in the sources of Al-Qur’an and Hadith9. In Islam ethics covers the aspects of physical, emotional and spiritual10. Furthermore, Islam is the basis in shaping an individual with a towering personality and a commendable ethics11. A. Advertising ethics from theological perspective There are scholars who focused on the theological perspectives on advertising ethics. Even though these approaches are theological in nature, they are still under the applied ethics approach because they are more concerned towards the impacts and affect of advertising on the society and the economy. For example, a study was done in five different countries to gauge the influence of religion on attitudes towards the advertising of controversial products12. Even though using different religions as constructs of the research, this study does not focus on studying the operational definition of advertising ethics and how people ought to behave or act as far as advertising ethics is concerned thus this research is focusing on the applied ethics practices. Another example to illustrate the practice of employing the theological applied ethics approach in studying advertising ethics is a research by Rice and al-Mossawi on the implications of Islam for advertising messages13. The authors suggested that due to the fact that Muslims in the Middle Eastern countries share the same beliefs, the advertising messages intended for those countries will be the same. Another prominent study on the advertising ethics through a theological perspective was done by the Pontifical Council for Social Communication, Vatican City14. The Council acknowledges the importance of advertising in the society and views it as ‘gifts of god’ that brings people together15. The objectives of the monograph were to: 3 i. ii. iii. iv. Call awareness to constructive contributions that advertising can and does make Note ethical and moral problems that advertising can and does rise, Point to moral principle that apply to this field, and Suggest certain steps for consideration of those professionally involved in advertising16. In the monograph, the Vatican laid out the benefit, the harms, some ethical and moral principles worth considering, and steps to be taken to improve the current situation regarding advertising ethics17. In discussing the benefits of advertising, the Council divides these benefits into four different segments; economic, political, cultural, and moral and religious benefit and the same four segments are then used again in their explanation on harms of advertising18. The monograph does not come without any weaknesses. Murphy argues that the monograph has several weaknesses that range from being too general in nature, mixing a lot of different issues throughout, too idealistic or unrealistic in some places, and avoiding from citing the secular literature19. Foley also acknowledges that issues such as the use of product placements in films and television programs, the promotion of products connected with the programs being shown, and also endorsements of products by famous persons should be included in the monograph in the first place20. Brenkert argues that in the monograph, the Council argues from one-sided perspective that advertisers are morally responsible in the market and rejects the view in which the consumers have responsibility for their own decisions21. 2. Research Objective The main objective of this paper is to understand the Islamic approach towards ethics in advertising. Islamic advertising ethics is relatively new in the advertising body of knowledge. Due to numerous articles written on unethical advertising, the researcher feels that an in-depth study on this area is needed to shed light to current problems. An existing research on this area is only done through the Christianity perspective but it only touches benefit and harms of advertising in general22. Being a Muslim country, it is an added advantage to practice Islamic teachings in all aspects of life including when interacting with people through advertising. The researcher intends to come up with a model of Islamic advertising ethics. 3. Interview Protocol 4 The interview protocol was developed through consultations with a marketing assistant professor and several religious scholars. As mentioned earlier, this research is a part of a research on the effects of religiosity on advertising ethics. The interview protocol was divided into five main sections. It started with the demographic section, followed with overview on advertising ethics, religiosity, religiosity (existing measurement variables), and religiosity and advertising ethics. For the purpose of this paper, only results from the demographic and overview on advertising ethics are utilized. The interview questions are structured as broad and open ended questions in order to gain more information from the religious scholars and also to enable the informants to define the situation23. The main purpose of the protocol is to gain in-depth information on religious scholars’ perceptions and understanding on the issues of advertising ethics thus questions are structured to achieve these objectives. The religious scholars are chosen because they have a good understanding of the fundamental and advanced concepts in Islam. Furthermore, they are also a part of the target audiences of advertisements. Based on these assumptions, it can be concluded that they are the best respondents for this research. 4. Data Collection and Analysis Due to the fact this is an ongoing research; the researcher has managed to interview 11 respondents. In qualitative interview, statistical power is not the goal, and large samples cannot be easily analyzed with qualitative methods24. The personal interviews were conducted in 3 main cities in Malaysia: Putrajaya, Nilai, and Malacca. The respondents, although they are religious scholars, they came from different departments and agencies such as the states religious agencies, universities, and also the Islamic Development Department of Malaysia. Their working experience ranged from 1 year up to 17 years in service25. Furthermore, the respondents came from different academic background ranging from university diploma to PhD. Qualitative research is often about depth, nuance, and complexity thus the act of focusing through sampling is very essential, strategic and practical26. The researcher has utilized the snowball sampling technique by selecting cases from referrals by respondents27. Through this method, the author can get access to a lot of respondents compared to other sampling techniques due to the existence of bureaucracy and red tapes in the government agencies where the respondents are employed. 5 Table 1: Demographic of Respondents Number of Respondents Job assignment Assistant religious officer Religious officer Deputy director Lecturer Deputy dean Dean 3 2 2 1 1 1 Years of experience 1 – 5 years 6 – 10 years 10 – 15 years More than 15 years 4 6 0 1 Gender Male Female 10 1 City Putrajaya Nilai Malacca 1 3 7 Academic background Diploma BA Masters PhD 3 4 3 1 Area of Expertise Quranic studies Sharia’h and law Islamic civilization 3 7 1 5. Limitations One of the major concerns regarding analyzing qualitative data is on the issue of subjectivity in interpreting the data28. Maxwell argued that, a qualitative research is not principally concerned with getting rid of the variance between researchers in the values and expectations they bring to the study, but with understanding how a particular researcher’s values and 6 expectations influence the conduct and conclusions of the study29. In analyzing the data, the researcher tried to be as transparent as possible thus written journals and memos are kept for future references. The researcher has employed both the expert and peer reviews throughout the research in order to monitor the consistency between the research’s methodology and its conclusion30. Another issue that should be put into consideration is the language barrier. The researcher has translated the original English version of the interview question in the Bahasa Melayu language31. 6. Findings and Discussions Generally, the religious scholars involved in this research agreed that ethically, advertising in Malaysia is tilting towards the negative side even though they are some positive aspects that can be commendable. A. The Malaysian advertising scenario Basically, religious scholars position’s on this issue is leaning towards the negative side with a few of them are on the neutral zone by citing positive and negative influences of advertising on the society in terms of ethical implications. Some of the scholars believed that advertising’s roles are to introduce products to the public, raising awareness in the aspects of consumers’ rights, and also bringing forwards new concepts such as Islamic financial products. Furthermore, some of the scholars believed that current advertisements are better in the forms of promoting Halal32 products and controlling forbidden substances such as cigarettes and alcohol consumptions. On the subject of negative effects of advertisings, the most important aspects that have been stressed by all of the scholars involved are in the areas of exploitation of women and also excessive emphasis on the financial return. Other aspects that have been also stressed are on the issues of false claim, fraud, lewd and vague advertisements, less emphasis on educating the public, and putting more emphasis on western culture. B. Effects on the target groups Basically the effects of advertisements on the general public can be divided into three distinct target groups; children, teenagers, and adults. a. Children Children due to their age and lack of purchasing experience, they are the most prone target group among the three groups. Products that are targeted to this age group are simple and do not involve extensive cognitive thinking such as fast food and games. The religious scholars believed that the 7 children can be easily influenced in the forms of their behavioral attributes through the use of packaging, cartoon characters, celebrities, fantasy, and animation. They are attracted to things that are fun and visually attractive because at this stage, their mind can easily capture the promotional message from the advertisers. b. Teenagers This group raised a lot of concerns from the religious scholars interviewed because their purchasing decision at this stage has an impact to their future purchasing behaviors. The advertising practitioners used icons and celebrities to promote the message of freedom and happiness. This will actually determine the current trends in terms of dressing and social interactions among the members in the group. Products that are targeted at this group are electronic and high tech gadgets such as cell phones, personal computers, audio players, and also personal electronic games. The female sub group is more attracted to products such as beauty products and other products that can show their economic status such as expensive clothing, handbags and shoes. c. Adults All of the religious scholars agreed that adults are more matured in their purchasing decision. Their current purchasing decision is determined by their previous purchasing decision made during their teenage years. Purchases made in this stage are more towards family oriented products such as children education, self enhancement, self fulfillment and also sometimes acted as a proof of their economic success such as house, vacation, advanced degree, and also luxury items. Overall, advertising influenced all these target groups because companies have allocated a lot of money for advertising. Those who only cater to their basic need are the people who are not affected by advertising. The religious scholars believed that the children and teenagers should be disciplined at home because most advertisement impacts happened at home and the parents have total control over the television, radios, Internet usage and the reading materials that they bring into their homes and one of the scholars dubbed it as ‘fingertip parenting’ but the blame should not always be set on the parents only because other parties such as the government and also the society have their own roles to play. Another interesting fact derived from the interview is that one of the scholars argued that the advertisements are the reflections of the advertising practitioners’ true self. C. Improving the current situation 8 In order to improve the current situations, the religious scholars have suggested that the government, society, and the advertising practitioners should understand their own roles. a. Roles of the government The main role as agreed by the religious scholars is to monitor the process of advertising through an ethical guideline. Even though currently there is the Ethical Guidelines for Advertising under the Ministry of Information, the scholars believe that it should be streamlined in terms of enforcements and monitoring. They believe that enforcement and responsibility come hand in hand. Some of the roles proposed by the scholars include preparing general rules and regulations pertaining the issues of ethical advertising, setting up frequent discussion sessions with advertising practitioners, establishing an agency to filter every television commercials, fine tuning the current guidelines, delegation of enforcement power to local authorities and also to give good and transparent information to the public regarding the effects of unethical advertising to them. b. Roles of the society The religious scholar believed that the public should start responding to unethical advertisements through the consumer association. They added that the association has a strong voice but the coverage is not wide enough and its influence on the public should be promoted systematically. Another argument from the scholars is that knowledge is very important in order to ensure that the public will not fall prey to unethical advertising. The public have the choice whether to read, listen or watch the advertisement and the choice is in their hands. Parents are part of the components in the society and they have a substantial role to play. c. Roles of the advertising practitioners The advertising practitioners should act based on social responsibility. The scholars believed that it is time that the practitioner should act responsibly by giving and portraying the truth, assimilating social values, and by not focusing only on the aspect of financial implication. One interesting suggestion from the scholar is that before any advertisement being aired or published, it should be referred to panels of religious scholars for their expert views. This will prevent further unethical advertisements being revealed to the public intentionally or unintentionally. The most important things as suggested by the scholars is the awareness among the practitioners should be promoted and this can be done through discussions among their peers or setting up an association as a proper venue for discussion regarding the issue of unethical advertising. 9 All in all, all the parties such as the government, the public and also the advertising practitioners should play their own roles and work together when it comes to overlapping roles to achieve the objective of reducing or eliminating unethical advertisements. Ethical self control should be strong among the practitioners in order for them to better understand the boundary of ethics. They should be grounded on the notion that advertisements are just the summaries of all the product characteristics to be sold to the consumers. D. Foundation of Islamic ethics The fundamental foundations as agreed by all the religious scholars are Quran and Sunnah. It rooted from those two sources and then transcended into the act of performing religious rituals such as prayers and from there it transcended to the understanding of religious ritual. Thus ethics is the end product of this process. The scholars also believed that Iman is important while knowledge can differentiate between good and bad. Daud (1996)also argues that the system of belief or Iman in Islam is a combination of three elements which are heart, verbal and action in which a person who have high level of Iman will believe it in his/hart, vocalizes it through his/her words, and showing it through his/her actions33. The importance of Iman is evident in the Qur’an: Only those who are believers who have believed in Allah and His messenger, and have never since doubted, but have striven with their belongings and their persons in the cause of Allah: Such are the sincere ones34. Islam can be defined as ‘purity, peace, tranquility, obedience and surrender’ while Iman is the ‘belief in the Oneness of Allah and obedience to His command’ and those who believe in this is referred to as a Muslim35. According to Syed Nawab Haider Naqvi, the axioms of Islamic ethics are Tawhid, moderation, freewill, and responsibility36. His view is supported by Rafik in which he argues that the five main axioms of Islamic ethics are Tawhid, ‘Adl, freewill, responsibility and benevolence, and these five axioms fall under the Islamic Sharia’h principles37. Tawhid in Islam can be defined as the concept of worshipping the one and only God or the concept of monotheism and it is considered a moral matter38. This is evident in AlQur’an: “Say: He is Allah, The One; Allah the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, Nor is He begotten; And there is none Like unto Him.”3940 10 Apart from that, even though there are considerable amount of ethical teachings and examples in the Qur’an, it is not the sole source of expression of the ethical ideal of Islam because the Sunnah41 is also important source that magnifies and extends the key revelation substance from the Qur’an42. In Islam the first and foremost important moral and ethical element is devoting oneself to Allah. Mohd Nasir Omar defines ethics and moral from Islamic perspective as akhlaq or the state of feelings that shapes human behavior43. Mohd Asri Abdullah et al. argue that there are two categories of akhlaq; mahmudah44 and mazmumah4546. Zakaria Stapa argues that akhlaq is the element that promotes cohesiveness47. The religious scholars interviewed believed that the mahmudah characteristics can guide the society in order to promote ethical behaviors which are parallel to the Quran and Hadith. The scholars also believed that the ethical behaviors can be promoted through social activities within the community. E. Roles of advertising in Islam According to some of the religious scholars, advertising served the same function and preaching towards the path of godliness. This is because advertising is the process to disseminate information and the same practice is being used in religious preaching in which information about religious deed are being disseminated to the public. The scholars believed that advertising is a medium of information dissemination to the public, a source of knowledge, and should portray Islamic values such as getting oneself nearer to God, promoting good personal and family financial planning behaviors, and giving time and space for the public to think and evaluate purchase decisions. The most important roles of advertising according to the scholars are not to deceit, not to encourage false claims, not to complicate purchase decision, and not to withhold facts from the public. If these conditions are fulfilled, then the incidences of unethical advertising will slowly dissipate. One interesting discovery from the interview is that one of the scholars suggested that engagement and wedding ceremonies in Islam are considered to be acts of advertising. This is because other than connecting two individuals in a blissful matrimonial event, wedding and engagement ceremonies are also one of the ways to inform the public that these two individuals are taken and no longer available in the dating market. F. Bridging the gaps between current advertising practices and Islam One of the suggested solutions is through promoting the understanding of Islam among the advertising practitioners. They have to know and understand the rules, regulations, principles and guidelines that exist in Islam. Some of the scholars believe that the advertisements itself has to be 11 Islamic in the beginning with the intention of promoting good ethical behavior starting from the advertisement drawing and story boards. Instilling good and ethical behaviors should never came at the last stage in advertisement’s production. The government, religious scholars, and the advertising practitioners should sit on the same table discussing about the paths that advertisements should take. In addition, the advertisements should be realistic without neglecting the commercial elements of advertising. The scholars believed that commercial elements and the promotion of ethical behavior can come hand in hand if the practitioners understand the requirement from both sides. The advertisements should also be focused on improving the moral values among the intended recipients. G. Conflicts between advertising and Islam All of the religious scholars agreed that there are conflicts between the current advertising practices in Malaysia with the Islamic values especially in terms of gender exploitations. Another interesting conflict between these two is in the area of promoting unnecessary wastage through unintentional purchasing behaviors. The religious scholars understand that most of the advertising practitioners in Malaysia are not Muslim but these ethical values goes beyond the religious boundaries or in other words, all religions promotes ethical behaviors one way or another. H. Ideal roles of advertising in the society Advertising should play its own original intended roles which are to promote products and services while protecting good social values. The scholars also believed that there should be check and balances in advertising and this can be done by the government by monitoring the process of advertising in Malaysia. They believed that advertisements should help in creating a good social norms and it should be taken as a social obligation to the public. 7. Conclusions Based on the literature on ethics and advertising, it is evident that the current research on advertising ethics are focused on issues such as deceptive advertising, subliminal advertising, sex, age and gender manipulation, celebrity endorsement, industry regulation and self-regulation, advertising to children and a few studies on practitioners and advertising stakeholders. There are relatively few studies focusing on the theological aspect of advertising ethics such as the Christianity views on advertising ethics which is evident through the article written by Foley that focuses only on benefits and harms of advertising48. Based on these literatures, the researcher 12 believes that the area of Islamic advertising ethics is a new area to venture into and in need of a thorough study. 1 Haseeb Shabbir and Des Thwaites ‘The Use of Humor to Mask Deceptive Advertising’, Journal of Advertising , 36 (2), 2007, pp. 75-85 ; Patrick E Murphy. ‘Ethics in Advertising: Review, Analysis and Suggestions’, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing , 17 (2), 1998, pp. 316-319; Jessica Dawn Blair et. al,. ‘Ethics in Advertising: Sex Sells, but Should It? ‘Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues , 9 (2), 2006, pp. 109-118. 2 Alan J Bush and Victoria Davies Bush. ‘The Narrative Paradigm as a Perspective for Improving Ethical Evaluations of Advertisments’, Journal of Advertising , XXIII (3), 1994, 31-41. 3 Geofrey P Lantos, ‘Advertising: Looking Glass or Molder of the Masses’ Journal of Public Policy and Marketing , 6, 1987, pp. 104-128. 4 Israel D. Nebenzahl, and Eugene D. Jaffe, ‘Ethical Dimensions of Advertising Executions’, Journal of Business Ethics , 17, 1998, pp.805-815; Kim Shyan Fam, David S. Waller, and B. Zafer Erdogan, ‘The Influence of Religion on Attitudes Towards the Advertising of Controversial Products’, European Journal of Marketing , 38 (5/6), 2004, pp. 537-555; David S. Waller, and Kim Shyan Kam, ‘Cultural Values and Advertising in Malaysia: Views form the Industry’. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics , 12 (1), 2000, pp. 3-16. 5 Drs. Achmad Zubair,. Kuliah Etika. Jakarta: Rajawali Pers, 1987. 6 Edward H Spence, Bret Van Heekeren, Advertising Ethics. New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc, 2005, p 8. 7 Bodo B. Schlegelmilch, Marketing Ethics: An International Perspective. London: International THomson Business Press, 1998, pp. 6-7. 8 Dr. Hamzah Ya'qub, Etika Islam: Pembinaan Akhlaqulkarimah (Suatu Pengantar) (3 ed.). Bandung: CV. DIPONEGORO, 1985, p. 13. 9 Dato’ Dr Harun Din, Islam: Rujukan Efektif Akhlak Mulia. Kuala Lumpur: PTS Millennia, 2007. 10 Mohd Asri Abdullah et al.. Prinsip-Prinsip Asas Islam: Syariah, Ibadat dan Akhlak. Shah Alam: Penerbit Universiti UPENA, 2007a. 11 Che Zuina Ismail, Pengantar Asas-Asas Islam. Shah Alam: Pusat Penerbitan Universiti (UPENA) Universiti Teknlogi MARA, 2007. 12 Kim Shyan Fam, David S. Waller, and B. Zafer Erdogan, ‘The Influence of Religion on Attitudes Towards the Advertising of Controversial Products’, European Journal of Marketing , 38 (5/6), 2004, pp. 537-555. 13 Gillian Rice, and Mohammed al-Mossawi, ‘The Implications of Islam for Advertising Messages: The Middle Eastern Context’, Journal of Euromarketing , 11 (3), 2003, pp. 1-16. 13 14 From here onward, the Pontifical Council for Social Communication will be referred to as the Council and the report will be referred to as monograph. 15 Pontifical Council for Social Communication, Ethics in Advertising, 1997, Vatican City: Liberia Editrice Vaticana 16 Ibid. 17 John P. Foley, ‘Ethics in Advertising: A Report from the Pontifical Council for Social Communication’, Journal of Consumer Marketing , 16 (3), 1999, pp. 220-221. 18 Jef I Richards, Catholic Church Handbook on Ethics in Advertising, 1997, Retrieved August 1, 2007, from Department of Advertising, The University of Texas at Austin: http://advertising.utexas.edu/research/law/catholic.html 19 Patrick E. Murphy, ‘Ethics in Advertising: Review, Analysis and Suggestions’, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing , 17 (2), 1998, pp. 316319. 20 John P. Foley, ‘Ethics in Advertising: A Look at the Report by the Pontifical Council for Social Communication’. Journal of Public Policy and Marketing , 17 (2), 1998, pp. 313-315. 21 George G. Brenkert, ‘Ethics in Advertising: The Good, the Bad and the Church’, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing , 17 (2), 1998, pp. 325-331. 22 Pontifical Council for Social Communication, Ethics in Advertising, 1997, Vatican City: Liberia Editrice Vaticana 23 Minette E. Drumwright and Patrick E. Murphy, ‘How Advertising Practitioners View Ethics’, Journal of Advertising, Vol 33, No 2, Summer 2004, pp. 7-24. 24 Sabine Mertens Oishi, How to Conduct In-person Interviews for Survey, 2nd Edition, Sage Publication Inc, California, 2003, p. 171. 25 See Table 1 for demographics of the respondents 26 Jeniffer Mason, Qualitative Researching, 2nd Edition, Safe Publication Ltd., London, 2002, p. 121. 27 Carol A. Bailey, A Guide to Qualitative Field Research, 2nd Edition, Pine Forge Press, California, 2007, p. 65. 28 Minette E. Drumwright and Patrick E. Murphy, ‘How Advertising Practitioners View Ethics’, Journal of Advertising, Vol 33, No 2, Summer 2004, p. 10. 29 Joseph A. Maxwell, Qualitative Research Design: An Interactive Approach, 2nd Edition, Vol. 41, Sage Publication Inc, California, 2005, p. 108. 30 Carol A. Bailey, A Guide to Qualitative Field Research, 2nd Edition, Pine Forge Press, California, 2007, p. 188. 14 31 It is the official language of Malaysia and commonly used throughout the country. 32 Things that are permitted in Islam that encompasses the areas of food, financial products and other important daily products, practices and conducts. 33 Dr. Mustafa Haji Daud, Akidah Mukmin. Kuala Lumpur: Bahagian Hal Ehwal Islam, Jabatan Perdana Menteri, 1996. 34 Al-Qur’an: Al-Hujrat 49:15 35 Prof Dr. Ala’eddin Kharofa, Islam the Practical Religion (2nd ed.). Kuala Lumpur: A.S. Noordeen, 200, p. 15. 36 Syed Nawab Haider Naqvi, Etika dan Ilmu Ekonomi Islam: Satu Sintesis Islami., H. Bagir, Ed., D. H. Anis, & D. A. Hikmat, Trans., Bandung, Indonesia: Penerbit MIZAN, 1985, pp. 77-89. 37 Rafik Beekun, Islamic Business Ethics. New Delhi: The International Institute of Islamic Thoughts, 2003. 38 Salehuddin Ahmed, Islam Basic Beliefs. Kuala Lumpur: A.S. Nordeen, 1999, p. 13. 39 Al-Qur’an: Al-Ikhlas 112: 1-4 40 All Quranic translations in this writings are based on the English translation of the Holy Qur’an “The Meanings and Commentary”, King Fahd Holy Qur’an Printing Complex, Madinah al-Munawwarah under the Auspices of the Ministry of Hajj and Endowments. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 1410 Hijriyyah. 41 tradition based on the saying and doings of prophet Muhammad 42 W. Montgomery Watt, What is Islam? (2nd ed.). London: Longman, 1979, p. 192. 43 Mohd Nasir Omar, Falsafah Etika: Perbandingan Pendekatan Islam dan Barat. Kuala Lumpur: Bahagian Hal Ehwal Islam, Jabatan Perdana Menteri, 1992, p. 69. 44 good and required by Islam 45 bad and should be avoided 46 Mohd Asri Abdullah et al.. Prinsip-Prinsip Asas Islam: Syariah, Ibadat dan Akhlak. Shah Alam: Penerbit Universiti UPENA, 2007a. 47 Zakaria Stapa, ‘Akhlak Islam Titik Tolak Perpaduan Ummah’. In Z. Stapa (Ed.), Islam dan Cabaran: Ke Arah Kecemerlangan Ummah. Kuala Lumpur: Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia, 1999, pp. 93-108. 48 John P. Foley, ‘Ethics in Advertising: A Report from the Pontifical Council for Social Communication’, Journal of Consumer Marketing , 16 (3), 1999, pp. 220-221. 15 Bibliography Abdullah, M. A., Yusoff, K., Md Daud, C. K., Temyati, Z., Sidek, A. J., Abdul Razak, M. S., et al. (2007a). Prinsip-Prinsip Asas Islam: Syariah, Ibadat dan Akhlak. Shah Alam: Penerbit Universiti UPENA. Ahmed, S. (1999). Islam Basic Beliefs. Kuala Lumpur: A.S. Nordeen. Brenkert, G. G. (1998). Ethics in Advertising: The Good, the Bad and the Church. Journal of Public Policy & Marketing , 17 (2), 325-331. Al-Quran. Bailey, Carol A. (2007). A Guide to Qualitative Field Research. 2nd Edition, Pine Forge Press, California, pp. 65-188. Beekun, R. I. (2003). Islamic Business Ethics. New Delhi: The International Institute of Islamic Thoughts. Blair, J. D., Stephenson, J. D., Hill, K. L., & Green, J. S. (2006). 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Author’s Affiliation The author is a PhD candidate at the Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia. He is currently attached as a lecturer at the Islamic Science University of Malaysia, Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. He can be reached at [email protected] 18